O’Donnell, Birol, and Rao

I don’t have an overarching theme this time, just a few unrelated items for your perusal.

First, a post mid-term election suggestion for President Obama. In the spirit of bipartisanship, he should bring Tea Party favorite, failed senatorial candidate, and former anti-Onanism campaigner Christine O’Donnell into his administration. Her new position: anti-masturbation czar. Given the Republican House and the barely Democratic Senate, she should have her hands full (oops, sorry) for the next two years.

It’s going to resemble Northern Ireland in the 70s up on Capitol Hill – nothing but bomb-throwing and invective until both sides sink to their knees from simple exhaustion. Don’t expect anything substantive from them till after January 21^st, 2012. I’ll be happy if they just keep the government open for business till then.

On the energy front, Fatih Birol, the chief economist for the International Energy Agency, has said it. In an interview with National Geographic, he said “The age of cheap oil is over.” This wouldn’t be a noteworthy statement from James Kunstler or, for that matter, myself. An army of commentators have pointed out the limited nature of our planetary oil resources and the flattening oil production curve. The IEA, however, has been a locus of cheerful optimism, consistently projecting robust increases in production – which they then have to walk back when production disappoints.

In its latest report, the IEA even validates peak oil, and puts the peak of conventional crude production in the past. According to their report, conventional crude oil, the kind we drill for and get out of the ground as actual oil, peaked at 70 million barrels a day in 2006, and will never hit that point again. This doesn’t mean that “oil” production peaked in 2006, the quotes signifying the ersatz nature of a percentage of our supply. Tar sands, heavy oil, natural gas liquids, and biofuels will make up the difference, according to the IEA. The problem with these sources is that they consume more energy in their production than conventional crude, and cost more. In the case of tar sands, there is also the devastation of the environment around the production area to be considered.

The IEA doesn’t predict a total liquids peak until 2025 at the earliest, with production peaking at 99 million barrels a day. Consider their record of optimistic overshoot and plan accordingly. Really, it is a stunner when this organization even acknowledges the concept of peak oil, much less putting a date on it.

On the happy side of life, there is http://www.ribbonfarm.com . A man named Venkatesh Rao, who is an information systems wonk at Xerox, writes said blog. Venkat seems to possess, like Marvin the Android, a brain the size of a planet. His writing centers around the intersection of human behavior, business organization, and morality. With digressions, of course. He is always interesting, and sometimes mind-blowing. There are essays of his that I have reread three times just to get the last bit of juice out of them. This bit you are reading right now took longer than usual to write because I got sidetracked by rereading an essay on the concept of legibility.

I would especially recommend his essays on the Gervais principles of organizational behavior. (Parts One, Two, Three, and Four) He uses the popular sitcom The Office as a basis for exploring the essentially dysfunctional nature of the modern cube farm. I was about to start citing some other essays of his, but I wouldn’t know where to stop. Venkat also has an email list called “Be Slightly Evil,” wherein he explores the superior morality of being, well, slightly sociopathic. 

Venkat’s blog makes me say “I never thought of it that way,” and sometimes, “That is an utterly new concept for me.” Do a few mental warm-up exercises and drop by.